Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Why Gossip Trumps Ideas

"What bugs or puzzles me is that this rather unoriginal and not very great post, which I nearly didn't bother publishing at all, is getting all the attention in the econoblogosphere, while my following post, on red money, which (I think) is far more original, and far more interesting, and a far better post, is getting almost none."

Every once in a while I post something worthwhile that grabs a lot of views, sometimes even a few comments. Often, though, the views and comments are in inverse proportion to the originality and importance of the post. Sometimes I deliberately post trash talk just for the thrill of getting a few extra hits. Everything is data.

I'm sure you could find a scientific paper on this but why bother. It's obvious. Gossip trumps ideas. You don't see scholarly publications on sale near the supermarket check out counter. What is that telling us? It tells me that people are more interested than anything else in what other people are saying about what other people are doing. Keynes's beauty contest. Mimetic desire.

Where do "expectations" come from? They come from hearing what other people are saying about what their expectations are. Or thinking you've heard what other people have said...

4 comments:

You are only saying that because Robert Waldman commented on Noah Smith commenting on Nick Rowe commenting on Paul Krugman commenting on Milton Friedman. How dare you suggest that this has anything whatsoever to do with gossip!